These awards are in their second year and it means a lot to us to be nominated for an award that is focusedom environmental issues. Many people know us as the “windmill people” because we have been teaching people to build their own wind turbines since 2007. We have taught many courses in our local area of Co. Leitrim and have also been teaching further afield – both in Co Kilkenny and Portugal our next workshop in in Lisbon in January.

So pop on over to vote for us in the Save Our Planet Awards. If we are successful then more people will hear about home built wind turbines.

Germany’s northernmost state Schleswig-Holsteinlies on the base of the Jutland Peninsula between the North Sea and the Baltic Sea.

It will produce as much green electricity as it consumes over the year for the first time in 2014. It also plans to eventually generate as much as 300% of its electricity from renewables. This is a big achievement as eight years ago it generated about 30% of its electricity from wind power.

Two years ago the state’s planed to go 300 percent renewable, a target that then-Environmental Minister Peter Altmaier did not doubt the state could reach.

This year, Schleswig-Holstein will cross a symbolic milestone towards that goal by producing as much renewable electricity as the state consumes in electricity (including conventional) over the year as a whole – meaning that the figure is a net calculation, not that the state can do without interconnections to Denmark and other parts of Germany. Indeed, the state needs the grid both to sell its excess renewable power and to purchase conventional electricity.

In April, the state’s Energiewende Minister told German website Klimaretter that the government’s new target for 40-45 percent renewable electricity by 2025 is not enough to offset the drop in nuclear power by the end of the phaseout in December 2022 – a statement that stretches the case.

In 2013, Germany met 25 percent of its domestic power demand from renewables, with nuclear making up around 15 percent. Renewables would therefore need to grow by 15 percent to completely offset nuclear, putting the country at 40 percent renewable power by 2022.